Wednesday, February 27, 2013

I was sorry to read, in The Booksteve Channel blog, that veteran American actor Dale Robertson passed
away yesterday at age 89. The few mentions I’ve seen of his death so far note
his starring roles in two TV westerns, Tales of Wells Fargo (1957-1962) and The Iron Horse (1966-1968). But the handsome, often broad-smiling Robertson also led a much later, Stephen J. Cannell-created series, J.J. Starbuck, playing Jerome Jeremiah “J.J.” Starbuck, an oil-rich Texan who--to quote Wikipedia--wanders across the United States in a 1961 Lincoln convertible, “helping out ‘good folks’ in trouble, using his influence and contacts, and more than often doing a little detective work.”

In tribute to Robertson, I am embedding the main title sequence from J.J. Starbuck atop this post. I don’t see any episodes of that short-lived program on YouTube, but you can watch “Death
by Triangulation,” a 1967 installment of The Iron Horse, beginning here. And blogger Steve Thompson offers some “rarer than rare photos” from Robertson’s early life here.

Just the Facts

All Points Bulletin

Send Us News:
The Rap Sheet is always on the lookout for information about new and soon-forthcoming books, special author projects, and distinctive crime-fiction-related Web sites. Shoot us an e-mail note here.

Subscribe to The Rap Sheet

If You Can, Please Help The Rap Sheet to Survive and Thrive

Fall-Winter Reading Picks

Check out our picks of more than 320 works of mystery, crime, and thriller fiction—from both sides of the Atlantic—scheduled to reach bookstores between now and New Year’s Day, 2017. Click here.

The Rap Sheet Faithful

Disclosure Notice

The Rap Sheet accepts books sent free of charge from publishers, publicists, and authors. Those works may inspire comments on this page. However, in no case is there any promise given that a book will be the subject of an endorsement or review, either positive or negative.

Videos Disclaimer

From time to time, The Rap Sheet features short video clips. Use of these is for historical and entertainment purposes only, and is not meant to establish ownership of such materials. Rights to those clips stay with their owners/creators.

The One Book Project

In honor of The Rap Sheet’s first birthday, we invited more than 100 crime writers, book critics, and bloggers from all over the English-speaking world to choose the one crime/mystery/thriller novel that they thought had been “most unjustly overlooked, criminally forgotten, or underappreciated over the years.” Their choices can be found here.

The Wayback Machine

Before The Rap Sheet was a blog, it was a monthly newsletter in January Magazine. To find all the old editions of that newsletter, just click here.

Your Vigilance Is Requested

Those of us responsible for The Rap Sheet try to get everything right, and we work to keep our Web links up to date. But we’re not perfect. So, if you spot any errors (typographical or otherwise) in this blog, or discover links or embedded videos that aren’t functioning properly, please let us know via e-mail.